Washington — A federal judge in Oregon dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit Monday that sought sensitive voter information from the state.
The decision from U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai is the latest setback for the Trump administration in its efforts to obtain copies of voter registration lists from dozens of states. Earlier this month, a federal judge in California rejected the Justice Department’s bid to get sensitive information related to the 23 million voters on its voter rolls, calling it “unprecedented and illegal.”
An entry on the docket for the Oregon case indicated that Kasubhai granted the state’s request to dismiss the suit and would soon issue a formal opinion detailing his reasoning.
“The court dismissed this case because the federal government never met the legal standard to get these records in the first place,” Oregon Attorney General Day Rayfield said in a statement. “Oregonians deserve to know that voting laws can’t be used as a backdoor to grab their personal information.”
The Justice Department sued Oregon in September and sought a court order directing the state to turn over its voter registration list of nearly 3.8 million registered voters, which contains sensitive information including addresses, birth dates, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.
The lawsuit alleged that Oregon and its secretary of state, Tobias Read, violated federal voting laws by refusing to turn over the unredacted copy of the state’s voter rolls.
But in seeking to have the case dismissed, Oregon officials argued that the Justice Department was not legally entitled to the sensitive voter information it was demanding. They also said that federal privacy law prohibits the government from collecting records of conduct protected by the First Amendment.
Kasubhai, appointed by former President Joe Biden, held a hearing earlier this month on the state’s effort to have the lawsuit dismissed. But he scheduled another proceeding for Monday to discuss a letter Attorney General Pam Bondi sent to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz about immigration enforcement activities in the state.
In the letter, dated Saturday, Bondi urged Walz to cooperate with the Trump administration in three areas to “bring back law and order to Minnesota and improve the lives of Americans.” One of the steps the attorney general specified was to give the Justice Department access to Minnesota’s voter rolls, which she said would “better guarantee free and fair elections and boost confidence in the rule of law.”
Kasubhai ordered lawyers with the Justice Department and the state of Oregon to explain the relevance of Bondi’s letter in interpreting the “basis and purpose” of the demand for the voter registration list.
Since May, the Justice Department has demanded complete voter registration lists from nearly every state and Washington, D.C., according to the Brennan Center for Justice. At least 11 states have either turned over or said they intend to provide the information to the Trump administration.
The Justice Department has sued two dozen states and Washington, D.C., for refusing to hand over the voter information.
The Trump administration has said it needs those records to ensure states maintain accurate voter rolls and remove ineligible voters to prevent the opportunity for fraud in federal elections. But government documents previously reviewed by CBS News show the Justice Department is working with the Department of Homeland Security to provide the data so it can be used for criminal and immigration investigations.